Reading Goal

5 books. That’s it. There will be no other levels. Of course, participants are encouraged to read more than 5 books. Eligible books include those which are written by African writers, or take place in Africa, or are concerned with Africans and with historical and contemporary African issues. Note that at least 3 books must be written by African writers.

Genres

Fiction – novels, short stories, poetry, drama, children’s books. Note: You can choose to read a number of individual and uncollected short stories. In this case, 12 such stories would constitute 1 book. Individual poems do not count but books of poetry do.

Non-fiction – memoirs, autobiographies, history and current events

Reading Suggestions

Cover at least two regions, pick from North Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, West Africa and Central Africa

Include translated fiction from Arabic, Francophone and Lusophone literature

You can mix classic and contemporary fiction

If you are intend to read mostly non-fiction, then please include at least one book (out of the five) of fiction

I’m not inclined to push any reading philosophy, I would however like to encourage participants to broaden their knowledge of African literature. Broadly then:

For the novice, if you have not read any African lit or if you’ve read one book (E.g. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart): I would advise a mix of at least two regions, two languages, classic and contemporary, with both men and women writers. A sample reading list could be:

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (North Africa, Arabic, classic)

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Southern Africa, contemporary, modern fantasy)

For the advanced reader of African literature: perhaps there is some gap (country, region, language, theme, gender) you want to fill or author(s) whose works you want to explore further?

You could also, for example:

Read only collection/anthologies of short stories

Stick to the literary tradition of one country

Read only Lusophone literature

Explore the literature of contemporary South Africa

Read the books of North African countries of the Arab Spring

Read wherever the urge takes you!

My suggestions notwithstanding, the most important thing is to have fun and to explore Africa through books.

Other Details

Overlap with other challenges is allowed.

E-books and audio books are allowed.

There is no need to make a list beforehand. Although most of us love lists, don’t we?

To Sign up:

For those with blogs: write a post on your blog about the challenge (with or without your list) and sign-up with the Mr Linky below using the direct URL of your sign-up post.

For those without blogs: you can sign-up with your social media profile (Twitter, YouTube, Goodreads, Facebook or Shelfari). Please make sure to use the URL of your profile page. Alternatively, you can leave a comment indicating your intention to participate.

Reviews and Completion of Challenge

Reviews of books read are not required but are encouraged especially for those with blogs. Please share your reviews with the rest of community the on Reviews Page. If you do not have a blog and would like to guest review on this blog, then please feel free to contact me.

Likewise, completion posts are encouraged and you can share those on the Completion Page.

On Books and Reading Lists

Some classic African literature can be hard to find. Please check your libraries and use inter-library loans if you have access to such services. You will be able to do this challenge with the books currently available on the market.

I will publish lists of reading materials under various themes every Friday until I tire of the process. Please contact me at kinnareadsATgmailDOTcom if you need any help.

Events

Ghanaian Literature Week – I have hosted this event for the past two years. This year, I will move it up from November to probably August (pending an announcement). So you could save your GhanaLit reads for then.

Nigerian Literature Event – Amy will host this even again this year. She will provide more details in due course

A new reading event – I’m toying with the idea of a South African Lit week or month. I will decide soonest and let everyone know. Or if anyone is interested in hosting this or any event, please do!

You can subscribe to this blog (see top of the right sidebar) to stay updated on this challenge.

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Super super good!
Im going to read the latest from my homeland Kenya:PRINCESS ADHIS AND THE NAIJJO COCA BRODA by Tony ‘Smitta’ Mochama and ONE DAY I WILL WRITE ABOUT THIS PLACE by Binyavanga Wainaina. After that,i will read something from the North,South,East and Central Africa.

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Thank you for this challenge, Kinna. I don’t think I’ve read any African literature, but I’m very interested in its various histories and cultures. I decided to give your novice reading list a shot, minus the ones I can’t get at my local library (Salih and Ba), plus the the African Literature staple by Achebe. For now, I’ve added Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese, but I’m doubtful this one actually counts. So, my list is still possibly one book short – I’d like to add a west/north African novel – what would you recommend to someone with my level of experience that will likely be available in a Canadian library?

I am among those who discovered your challenge through Alex’s blog, but only now did I manage to write a sign-up post. Thank you for hosting this!
And on a completely different note, I love your blog’s header image!

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I’m a bit late to the party, but this challenge sounds really great so I’ve just signed up. I quite fancy including a non-fiction book in my 5 titles – I look forward to seeing what books everybody picks.

This is definitely something I look forward to participating in. I haven’t read much African fiction since I left school and this challenge is just the thing I need to get me to seek out more African writers and also hopefully more Ugandan writers too.
I have just put up my list. Though I have only put up the 5 required for the challenge there are others that I have marked for when I am done with ARC. Should be an interesting year. Now to the reading.

Just seen your challenge. For your readers who are interested in reading novels from lesser-known African countries, they might look at my website http://themodernnovel.com/african/region.htm, where they will find reviews of books from Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cape Verde, CAR, both Congos, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Réunion, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tunisia and /zambia, as well as the better-known countries. Sadly, many are not available in English.

[…] made me aware of the Africa Reading Challenge for 2012. The original rules can be found listed here, but as you will find, I have twisted several of them in order to suit myself. In the first place, […]

I am currently reading “How to Read the Air” by Dinaw Mengestu (and loving it!).. and “The Official Wife” by Mary Karooro Okurut (not enjoying this one) and planning to read Teju Cole’s “Open City.” (looking forward to this one)
I read a lot of African literature.. and this is an excuse to read more of it!!! I am not even going to add my current reads to the five because that way I get to read more 🙂

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i’ve just joined as well – very exciting!
i can’t wait to see what other people are reading, and to develop my own list. i hope to surpass five, and luckily there is plenty of time in which to do so. thank you for posting this!

[…] is for projects and goals. I got to participate in The Book Smugglers Smugglivus. I joined the African Reading Challenge and pledged my support of the Birthday Party Pledge. I came up with a post series idea which […]

Kinna, just to clarify, for this challenge, the fiction should be by AFRICAN authors, right? Just wondering as I’m making my lists. My classics book club is reading Heart of Darkness (shudder, I’m a bit afraid) but that’s not by an African, so it wouldn’t count?

I have plenty others on my list, so I shouldn’t have a problem reading 5 in the whole year, but I just wanted clarification on that.

Yeay! I just finished reading Sleepwalking Land, thoughts to come. I also really want to read Wizard of the Crow this year, maybe sometime later in the year after baby brain wears off. And then I’ll have to find something Ghanian and Nigerian (oooo I have THING AROUND MY NECK to finish). Thanks for doing this! I’m not about challenges this year but I can do 5 in the year, especially since I already finished one. 🙂

I just discovered your 2012 Africa Reading Challenge, and of course, I have to join because I’m already sponsoring a North Africa Reading Challenge at my blog Semicolon. You can read about it here: http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=16009

I d said I d not do any challenges but as it is you and as I will read five african books this year at least it isn’t going to be to hard ,not sure what yet but want to find some real gems ,all the best stu

I came to this challenge by way of The Sleepless Reader. I am currently reading my way around the world (1 book per country) and therefore will at some stage have to read books from all African countries. As I have set myself challenge rules as to which country I read at any one time, I can’t in advance state which countries I will be covering but as I have two African countries already in my next five to-be-read (Angola and Malawi), I think I am fairly safe to commit to this challenge and it will be great to share reviews on African lit with other readers – looking forward to it. BTW, I have LONG lists of African lit suggestions which I can share if it will help…
Happy reading!
The Literary Nomad

Thanks for you offer of sharing your list of African literature. I will take you up on that. No pressure, I’m sure that you will read the 5 books given the even bigger challenge of reading 1 book per country.

I’m awful with challenges! I sign up and forget all about them. But, I’ve got to give this one a try! I haven’t read African literature in quite a while and could use the nudge into a directed reading. I’m adding the blog to my Google Reader as following the many events you have planned will keep reminding me to read.
Thanks for hosting this!

I’m certainly in. I love it when a challenge matches with goals you already have for yourself! 🙂 I built up quite a significant TBR shelf of African fiction and non-fiction last year and thank goodness otherwise my determination only to read from the TBR would thwart my joining in. As it is I have over 15 books to choose from. I’ll post about them soon.

I am definitely participating and will be postiong about this. Very excited. My choices may not be all that original, since I haven’t read many books from African authors (I haven’t even read Things Fall Apart *hides in shame*), but I do have some exciting choices on my shelves and I’m sure this will lead to many more recommendations!

I think this is awesome. I’m have over committed on number of challenges, but this one really sounds like up my alley. If by fluke I am close to reading 5 African books, I’ll sign-up and post my review at one go!

Hi Kinna! This challenge is so great. It overlaps completely with one of my own reading goals this year, which is to read 6 books by Kenyan authors (or about Kenya) before my trip there next summer/fall. Plus I’ve already read The Famished Road by Ben Okri this year and am starting a book now that’s set in Rwanda. So I just might have to overlap with this challenge, though it feels a bit like cheating 🙂

I *don’t* want anymore challenges for this year. Really I don’t!
But at the same time I really do 😉
As I said on twitter a few weeks (months? I don’t remember) ago when you were talking about this challenge I’m very interesting in reading more African lit. So I will sign up. Absolutely!
More later today!

Kinna, I’m in! The plan is to do only Portuguese-speaking African countries. Since the challenge is 5 books and there are 5 such countries, it seems perfect.

I’ve already looked online and know I’ll have problems getting books from authors from Sao Tome e Principe (probably Conceição Lima) and Guine-Bissau (probably Abdulai Silla), especially since I’m not currently living in Portugal. I’ll have to ask friends and family there to help me track them down 🙂

I was wondering how short stories will fit into this-not collections by one writer-I was wondering if you could add a section line-ten short stories from ten countries, or five or 20 as different levels-this could be done online starting with the Caine Prize stories-we could see how close to all the countries we could cover in a year-just let me know what your reaction to this is-as a practical matter many of us in South East Asia have no libraries so we rely on online sources

thanks I think I will try to find a short story online from every country over the course of 2012-might not be possible but would be a challenge for sure-once you do your amended post I will do a post on the Africa Short Story Challenge

As you know, I am beyond excited for this 🙂 Will start writing up my post now. Can’t wait to go home and peruse my shelves and decide exactly which books to read. I know for sure I want to explore more Lusophone and Francophone African lit.

I swore I wouldn’t get involved in any reading challenges this year, but I can’t resist this one. I’m going to read some of my African TBR which includes half a dozen Andre Brinks and one by Nadine Gordimer, plus The Cry of Winnie Mandela by Njabulo Ndebele, Ake by Wole Soyinka, Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda, A Blade of Grass by Lewis deSoto, Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor, and The Concubine by Elechi Amadi. I’ve got some short stories from African Roar on my Kindle too. I’ll try and organise my reading so that I read and review the Ghanian and Nigerian ones at the right time. Thanks for hosting this, Kinna!

Hi Cathy, the Nadine Gordimer is July’s People, but I’m not going to read that one next. The plan is (vaguely) to read one per month from what I have on my TBR, but to try to read he authors I don’t know first. So since I’ve already read Gordimer’s The Conservationist, I probably won’t get to that for a while.